According to E! News, Franco (35) met 17-year-old Lucy Clode after a recent production of his Broadway play, Of Mice and Men. Clode, who was visiting NYC from Scotland with her mom as an early 18th birthday present, reportedly snapped a few Instagram photos of herself and Franco, in which he told her to tag him.

Later, after connecting with Clode through the app and apparently exchanging numbers, Franco allegedly began flirting with Clode and suggesting he get a hotel room for the two of them.

The young tourist was apparently upfront with Franco and told him she’d “come back when [she’s] 18” and that her “Scottish friends” would never believe her story, to which the actor replied, “don’t tell,” (via Gawker).

Then, while appearing this morning on Live with Kelly and Michael, Franco opted to admit to his blunder, coming right out and admitting that he’d hit on Clode.

“I mean I guess, you know, I’m embarrassed, and I guess I’m just a model of, you know, how social media is tricky,” Franco began. “It’s a way people meet each other today. But what I’ve learned I guess just because I’m new to it is like, you don’t know who’s on the other end. You meet somebody in person and you get a feel for them but you don’t know who you’re talking to, and, you know? So I used bad judgment. I learned my lesson.”

“Unfortunately in my position, I mean…I have a very good life,” he continued, “but not only do I have to go through the embarrassing kind of rituals of kind of meeting someone, sometimes if I do that then it gets, you know, published for the world so now, you know, it’s like doubly embarrassing.”

Ironically, in Franco’s forthcoming movie Palo Alto, which he was promoting on the show, he plays a high school coach engaging in an inappropriate relationship with a student (Emma Robinson); a detail which has lead many to believe that the entire situation was an elaborate publicity stunt.